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Michael Drewniak repeatedly sounded the same notes throughout his testimony before the Legislature’s special committee investigating the George Washington Bridge Lane closures — asserting his lack of prior knowledge of the incident and emphatically defending his boss, Gov. Chris Christie.

Christie’s press secretary parried with legislators for more than six hours on Tuesday, answering questions that focused on when he knew about the lane closures and the traffic jams they caused, when he realized it was a brewing issue and when he notified the governor of rumors that at least one person within the administration knew of the incident.

Drewniak’s testimony did point to one glaring flaw in the administration’s operations: There seemed to be a willful suspension of inquisitiveness when it came to the allegations that the lane closings had political origins. Drewniak, even after he realized that something wasn’t quite right with the traffic-study story being peddled by Wildstein, didn’t look into the information he was handed. Rather, he simply fulfilled his job and told others, who apparently didn’t look that hard, either.

But the famously testy press secretary never really lost his cool and never wavered. He was forthcoming enough to say that he had told senior administration officials that David Wildstein, the former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive who is believed to have executed the lane closings, said Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Stepien knew.

And, despite the certain chatter that will result from Drewniak’s acknowledgment that people in the administration were aware of Wildstein’s claims before Christie told the world that his staff had no involvement in the lane closings, this may be a short-lived tempest. Through it all, Drewniak kept returning to the same core message: The lane closures made no sense as a political maneuver because no one had anything to gain from them. By extension, we are led to believe, it’s ludicrous to believe that the governor would have had anything to do with them.

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Perhaps it is because of Drewniak’s hard edge that his testimony was compelling. He came across as a friend betrayed by the shenanigans of others and a man left perplexed by the foolishness of it all. The testimony even prompted Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald, the Camden County Democrat and member of committee, to all but exonerate Drewniak of any culpability in the lane-closure scandal, beyond misplaced trust.

That may bode well for Drewniak. It may even present Christie with more credible evidence that he did not know about what was being cooked up behind his back. But that may not be good news for the governor’s long-term national ambitions.

Through two rounds of questioning, we have learned one important thing: People within the Christie administration failed to recognize or act on the growing indications that at least one of their own was intimately involved in the lane closures.

Ignorance may be a reason but it is no excuse for a governor who has built a reputation based on competence.